they call them ‘skinny jeans’

Every time my husband and I have a date night, I spend the afternoon digging through my closet to find something that doesn’t hang off of me. Since grossly oversized blousy-blouses and dresses draped like togas pinned with chip-clips aren’t my style, I’d usually settle on jeans and a black shirt, and dress it up a little with sparkly jewelry.

I hate to have to talk about dress sizes. They’re just numbers, I get it. I was there. But I’m here now and I can’t tell this story without them.

I used to be a size 14/16 on the low end — I hated going shopping because nothing at the mainstream “pretty” stores fit me. I felt like I was forced to shop in the back corner of a department store if I wanted something dressier, something that wasn’t marked XL/XXL in Old Navy or Target.

A few weeks ago TPS took me shopping and I spent the bulk of the time trying on different sizes of the same pants, shirt, dress to see what fit. Instinctively I reached for a size 8, maybe 10 — and everything was too big. Except there was a dress at H&M which I loved, but I had to bump it up a few sizes just so I could zip it up. (What’s with that H&M? I bought the dress, but I didn’t feel good about it and bought nothing else on that trip.)

I did a little post-Christmas shopping for myself last week to get some more tops to go with jeans for casual date nights and outings, something a little dressier than what I’d wear to take Olen to the playground. I walked right into one of the pretty stores and told the first salesperson I saw what I was looking for.

She went to work, asking me what appealed to me, handing me different things to feel, asking me if I’d like to try this sweater or that shirt on. It was a totally new experience for me and also totally super fun. I had about six tops to try on in the dressing room (all smalls and mediums… what!?) and when I found one I kind of liked on, I asked her what she thought and her response was:

“You need some skinny jeans.”

She asked me what size I was and I told her 8, with the caveat that a few weeks ago I was swimming in 6′s at another store across the mall. She brought back a pair of size 4 skinny jeans and I might have had to apologize for rolling my eyes from here to Canada at her. When I pulled them on and buttoned them without even having to suck in, I might have squealed a little.

(The idea that I went from a size 16+ to a 4 astounds me. The idea there was a size four person inside of me all this time: incomprehensible. These jeans might have made every skipped bread, every unordered dessert, and every bead of sweat worth it.)

They were a little long, but they fit! They were soft and snug against every curve and not-curve of this new body of mine. I stood in front of the three-way mirror and waffled for a while as other women came into and left the dressing room. A few of them even gave me compliments. (What, some women do that? Let’s be friends.) In the end I didn’t buy the top, but I bought the jeans and two sweaters. I’m already making plans to go back in a few weeks to buy more of the same jeans and try on a few tops to go with them.

Size four skinny jeans. Mine.

And it was all me.